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Monday, February 25, 2013

My Oprah Ah-Ha Moment Last Night.

OK so I've said it for my entire life, I don't watch or care about awards shows. With the exception of the Tony Awards. But outside of that, I don't at all get into them. I absolutely loathe the red carpet junk. Bleh. Who are you wearing? Who cares!

Instead I watch Oprah blow my mind.

Her Life Class guest was someone I knew about from Bestie, Dr. Gary Chapman. He wrote The 5 Love Languages.

So I took the quiz and was surprised. I thought I would be more evenly split. But I was significantly a Words of Affirmation girl.

And then the good Dr. commented about someone who did not grow up hearing many or any positive words, might crave them as an adult, but also not know how to handle receiving them.

That. Is. Me.

My mouth was open. I just totally had an ah-ha. Because I crave positive affirmation. To the point that I will jump on you to ask if the food was good enough or gift was what you wanted. I need to know I did a good job. But then when I get my answer, I am completely squirmy and weird.

Y'all know, my life is one perpetually awkward moment.

I heard mostly negative stuff growing up. And to this day, it is rare that I hear anything positive from a loved one. Rare.

But then Elizabeth Hasselback talked about how her husband's love language is so different, almost foreign, to her own. And how she has to make a conscious effort to speak his language to show him she loves him.

And another light bulb went off.

So Cousin and I have this running dialog mocking our family. Because our family discusses exactly NOTHING. We do not talk about deep issues. Ever. We are polite to a fault. Even during our Christmas tradition of the Dirty Santa Game (aka White Elephant or Yankee Trade). Someone will get a gift that the person next at bat will want but they won't steal it. We are too polite. To the point that it's uncomfortable sometimes.

So when I think of my childhood (and adulthood) and how I never feel loved because I never ever hear positive affirmations, I wonder if those loved ones were loving me. But in one of the four other languages that I don't speak.

My second language was Gifts. Which I expected. And is also not a language particular people in my life speak. I'm not even just talking about receiving gifts. But giving them too. That is a major way I show my love. But if that's not a way someone receives love, well it's no different than one of us speaking English and the other speaking Russian. So if I give a gift and it gets almost no reaction, that crushes me. I wonder if knowing more about this changes my reactions to things like that in the future.

You can take the quiz for yourself and read up on the episode too. I think this would be especially helpful if you are actually in a relationship. But I am having OMGs and Ah-ha's about family and friends and associates too.

3 comments:

I was pretty evenly split between Words of Affirmation (9), Quality Time and Receiving Gifts (8 each). Acts of Service got 5 (basically I'll never ask for help for things I can do myself, and I'll stress that it's not getting done to my standards and liking). Physical Touch got 0 - we're just not a touchy-huggy family.The outcome didn't really surprise me. I like being told I'm appreciated, but showing it once in a while with a gift, etc is nice too. When things get taken away (*cough* pay increases, bonuses *cough*,) I start to feel devalued.